P.E.I. needs to do more to control access to tobacco, says an Ontario researcher.

Dr. Michael Chaiton of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit is on the Island to do a workshop with members of the P.E.I. Tobacco Reduction Alliance.

Chaiton discussed the need to treat tobacco as a medical issue on CBC's Island Morning, and looking at some of the root causes of smoking.

He also said there should be more regulation around how and where people can buy tobacco.

'For sale at every corner store'

"We have to continue working on changing some of the reasons why tobacco is so available still in our society," said Chaiton.

"We still have tobacco for sale at every corner store. It's available 24 hours a day. It's much more easily accessible than milk or eggs. And that's something that's hard to combine with the idea that it is such a dangerous consumer product."

Statistics from last year showed P.E.I. had the second biggest drop in the country in percentage of the population smoking.

Smoking rates for Islanders aged 15 or older fell from 17.3 per cent to 12.7 per cent.

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